Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (32 page)

“There is no choice!
Go
!” Rip hollered, stabbing a finger after her.

Ridley’s lips disappeared in a tight, white line. “I am
so
going to end up getting stabbed tonight,” he grumbled under his breath and took off after her.

Filling his lungs, he said a silent prayer not to lose any extremities and hooked his hand around Ireland’s upper arm
, spinning her toward him. Mid-rotation she crossed her arms, shaving his neck with the edge of her sword on one side, while her axe pressed dangerously close to his jugular on the other. One scissor-like motion and his head would roll.

Ireland stared
hard at the hand holding her, her murderous glare slowly traveling to Ridley’s face. “Does that seem wise?”

“About as sound a decision as French kissing a crocodile
.” Ridley’s Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the crossed weapons. “But I need you to listen.”

“Well done! You got her to stop!” Rip chirped, popping into sight over Ireland’s shoulder. “At least momentarily, and with her stubborn streak even
that
is quite commendable.”

“I can’t risk losing her
again, Ridley,” tight blue lips murmured from beneath Ireland’s hood. “What do you want?”

“I … uh …
” His wide, panicked eyes flicked to Rip, who offered only a bewildered shrug.

“Tell her she is death,” Poe firmly stated, appearing beside Ridley in a chilling rush. “You are life. Together the two of you are
unstoppable.”

Opening his mouth, Ridley gave Ireland an apologetic smirk before muttering out of the corner of his mouth, “You think
now
is the best time for me to bring that first part up?”

“Ridley?” Ireland tensed up the pressu
re of her duo blades. Her chin rose to catch his attention. “Perhaps you and your ghostie friends could pick a less
dire
moment for this conference call?”  

“
Now
, lad! Say it!” Poe bellowed, his gruff, unearthly tone causing a flock of black birds to flap into flight from their roost in a nearby tree.

“You are
death. I am life. Together we are unstoppable,” Ridley rambled without pausing to take a breath.

Finally, Ireland’s readied arsenal wavered, her razor-sharp blades inching from his flesh. “Where did you hear that?
Lenore said something similar right before she gutted me.”

Ridley’s cheeks puffed to expel a relieved sigh. “Poe. He’s here and he wants to help. Since he knows more about Lenore than
any
of us, I think we should give him the floor for a minute.”

“That’s who you were talking to?” For a fraction of a second Ireland’s chin betrayed her by quivering, clouds of sorrow threatening to snuff out the blaze within her stare. “Poe?”

Rip’s hand raised behind her. His fingertips traced her shoulder, meaning to offer comfort. Instead his vaporous digits passed right through her. Curling his faulty hand into a tight fist, his bearded chin fell dejected to his chest.

“Yeah,” Ridley nodded, the half-truth easily tumbling from his lips in the face of her bleeding emotional anguish. “It was.”

Ireland retracted her weapons, metal raking over metal in a whispered shush. “And what suggestions does Mr. Poe have for convincing his beloved to embrace her afterlife with significantly
less
exuberance?”

Ridley’s head turned in Poe’s direction, his eyebrows raised expectantly. He listened intently, giving brief nods of understanding
as the man spoke. The disturbing nature of his directions tensed Ridley’s jaw, sharpening his features.

With his hands
steepled under his chin, Ridley focused back to Ireland. “My touch grants life, just as Poe’s did when he brought Lenore back from the dead. There’s only one thing that can alter my affliction…”

Ridley’s statement trailed off enough for Ireland to pick up what he was laying down and finish for him, “
My
touch. Because … I am death.”

“You touch me, I touch her, and we hold firm until she gives up this life she was never supposed to have.” Raven hair, gleaming purple in twilight’s descent, fell into his eyes as Ridley dropped his head to rub his palm over his forehead. “Sounds simple enough.”

“Except for the fact that she’s not going to let us get anywhere near her.” Ireland glanced over her shoulder, to find Lenore wandering further down the bank of the pond. “Our last attempt at girl time didn’t end well.”

P
oe’s gaze fixed on Lenore, his features softening as he breathed her in. “She will not permit anyone other than myself near her. However, if you allow me enter your vessel, I can implement a glamor of sorts. She will see you as me.”

Ridley raked a hand through his hair, leaving it a disheveled mess. “Didn’t you tell me you’re the guy that put her in the box? Seems to me she wouldn’t be too thrilled to see you.”

“My hope is that she will not recall that part,” Poe mused, nervously running his forefinger over his mustache. “After all she
was
asleep for it.”

“
Hope
?” Ridley’s hands curled in the air like he wanted to grab the long dead literary genius and shake some sense into him. “Seeing as
I’m
the guy that has to go slap a hand on your ex, I’d like a little more than
that
to go on!”

Twigs snapped under Ireland’s boot as she injected herself into the
conversation with a bold step forward. “Time is of the essence here. What is he saying?”

Wetting his lips, Ridley did his best to keep his tone neutral—and minus any sexual undertones. “He … wants to
enter me.” 

An almost smile tugged at one corner of her cobalt lips. “Well, y
ou make him buy you dinner first.”

“I had tickets to see
Kinky Boots
on Broadway this weekend,” Ridley muttered to himself as he spun to face Poe, “and plans afterwards to meet up with one of the female leads. Yet, here I am, asking the ghost of a mad man how we do this. Do I have to chant? Open my aura? Sacrifice a small woodland animal?”

Poe didn’t wait for him to finish his rant.
He drifted forward, disappearing within his host. Ridley’s hair wafted from his face. A cold chill settled into the very marrow of his bones, bringing with it the full body shivers of an impending bout with the flu. Fresh awareness cloaked his mind with a time he had never known, experiences he never lived. He still stood in the yard of the rundown property, of that he was sure. Ireland was still practically panting her agitation beside him—as if that would somehow speed this process along. Only now, another world was transposed over the top of this one, like a double exposed photograph. Silhouetting the dilapidated home was the ghostly image of the regal manor it had once been. Stained-glass windows, casting shimmering shades of every color imaginable, gleamed against fresh white paint. The landscaping was clipped and sheered with painstaking detail. On the street behind him, spoked carriage wheels crunched over gravel.

Surrounded by
spectral loveliness, yet it all paled in comparison to …
her
. Ridley could feel Edgar’s soul reaching for Lenore, the pull she held over him magnetic. His feet shuffled forward as if compelled by a mission all their own, disregarding the overgrown weeds that lashed against his legs and snagged the fabric of what had once been expensive slacks.

“Ridley!” Ireland caught his sleeve between two pinched fingers and tugged him back.
To ensure her message was received, she brushed her hood back from her face. “If this starts to go south, I’m pulling you out and handling this
my
way.”

“Read that as ‘with an excess of violence
,’” Rip interjected, his ghostly form twirling the end of his beard with one finger.

“If that happens,” Ireland continued, oblivious to
the color commentary, “I want you to run like hell and
don’t
look back.”

Ridley’s head tipped, offering her his best attempt at a supportive smile in spite of his own building trepidation. “Nothing bad is go
ing to happen.”

Loosening her death grip on the hilt of her sword, she raised her fingers to
stop him. “Just … if it does.”

Beside her Rip’s
shoulder sagged, his hands plunging deep into the pockets of the last slacks he would ever wear. “She needs this, Ridley,” he muttered, each word coated with melancholy. “Please. If only to comfort her.”

“Yeah, of course,” Ridley said. “Whatever you need.”

With a curt nod to coax him on, Ireland retreated back beneath her heavy wool hood.

Ridley watched his foot placement as he crossed the unkempt yard
. Startling the homicidal ghoul would
not
be conducive to his mission to get through this with all his limbs intact. Skirting around her in a semi-circle, he approached from the far side to draw Lenore’s attentions away from the direction where Ireland cautiously crept in.

With the moment of truth at hand, Ridley filled his lungs and prayed he could manage more than a high
-pitched squeak. “Lenore?”

Her neck curved his way with an elegant
grace the wading swans could envy.

Through Poe’s
spotty vision he saw momentary glimpses of the woman she had once been. One blink; a long, flowing curtain of spun gold hair. Another: filthy, matted locks.

“
Edgar?” Hopeful recognition flickered across Lenore’s lovely—then ghastly—face. Tentatively she took a step toward him, her tensed posture slightly easing to find a recognizable beacon in a universe of strange. “Wh-what is this place? It rings of the familiar,” her angelic face turned to glance around, granting him a glimpse of the hole rotted through the grey flesh of her cheek, “yet is cloaked in chaos.”

While Ridley found himself at a loss
and stammering for a method of manipulation to use on the undead, Edgar’s essence pushed to the forefront to speak directly to his enchanting queen. “That is because this is no longer our world. Take my hand, my flower. Together, we can leave this place.”

Lenore
reached for his offered hand, her flawless alabaster fingers flickering with decay. Abruptly, she paused. Confusion puckered her brow. “I woke in a box. Unable to scream. Unable to move. Was that
your
folly, Edgar? Did
you
imprison me in that tomb?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ridley caught sight of Ireland prowling closer. Her sword swung out in wide
practice arcs to one side, then the other, slicing nothing but air—for now.

“No!” Ridley
regained control of his senses to scoff at the glowering ghoul. “I would never …”

“T’was I,” Poe took over and finished for him. “I cannot and will not fabricate such a jarring truth to you,
my darling. That heinous act was indeed committed at
my
hand.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ridley yelped at the lethal glare Lenore fixed on him,
only to have Edgar’s powerful essence stifle him back into submission.

“I could not live with myself knowing of the affliction I had bestowed upon you. I sought
protection for you whilst I hunted for a way to reverse the curse and free you. Now, I have found just that. All you have to do is take my hand and we shall move on—together.” In spite of her flaring nostrils and hate filled glare, Edgar offered Lenore his hand a second time.

Black storm clouds of rage eclipsed the purple moons of her irises. Gr
ey, cracked lips curled from her teeth in a menacing snarl. “
You buried me in the ground
.”

Her body angled, Ireland neared with stealthy side-steps. The shadows of her cloak could not hide
her violent intent as she crossed her weapons in front of her, poised for battle.

“I did,” Edgar answered with the right combination of apologetic calm, even though his host’s pulse was pounding through his veins. “It was an act of desperation, one I committed purely out of love.”

“Love?” A grave rattle reverberated from the depths of Lenore’s darkened soul. Her hands clenching into unforgiving claws at her sides. “
That
is your definition of love? Trapped down there, praying for death. It whispered and taunted, yet never claimed me. You profess
that
to be love?”

Bile rose in the back of Ridley’s throat at
the brown ooze that seeped from the flaking flesh of her cheek. “It was far more humane than what would have become of you had anyone learned of what transpired here at this very residence,” Edgar continued to answer for him.

“
Mercy
, was it?” Lenore practically spat. Taking a threatening step closer, she treated Ridley to a frightening glimpse of her pupils dilating. Her eyes transformed into swells of writhing black despair. “Perhaps I should return that same gesture?”